CNN Sports Show Plummets in Ratings

CNN’s highly-hyped 30-minute sports show, Unguarded, has opened to miserable ratings. CNN made headlines when it poached Rachel Nichols from ESPN last March to host the show as the network tries to undergo a transformation under Jeff Zucker. The network’s ratings have plunged, though, since Zucker has taken over the helm.

The Nichols-hosted sports-themed show not only hit a demo low but a viewership low too. The 10:30-11 PM show had a very weak 41,000 viewers in the news demo and just 133,000 viewers overall. That’s a 55% free fall in the demo from Unguarded’s already soft October 25 premiere. It’s also a 54% slide from the 288,000 overall viewers who watched the show’s launch.

The network has turned off many viewers with its stale political coverage and liberal partisanship masked and cloaked in objectivity, which has led to historically low ratings. Because of that, CNN will reportedly be shifting away from some news programming to improve its ratings with documentaries and reality-based programming. But from Unguarded‘s ratings, it seems as if the network will have more than a tough time winning back viewers who have thrown in the towel on its programming.